51-year-old South African diver Rainer Schimpf miraculously survived after the whale captured him in its mouth, along with sardines, Sputnik reported.

Schimpf heads the company Dive Expert Tours, which organises diving excursions for amateurs and professionals. When the incident occurred, Rainer, along with a team of divers, was filming sardines near Port Elizabeth, east of Cape Town.

The divers were about 40 kilometres from the coast, when the sea suddenly began to seethe. A huge whale, known as a Bryde's whale, emerged from under the water and swallowed Schimpf along with a shoal of sardines.

"Suddenly the whole world around me got dark and I felt enormous pressure around my waist, in the area of my weight belt," he told mype.co.za.

Schimpf realised that he was in the whale's mouth, and thought that the whale was about to dive back down, dragging him.However, the experienced diver, who had been working as a diving operator for 15 years, was able to down and extricate himself from the whale's mouth.